It is important in many situations for medical staff, parents or attendants to be able to monitor the bodily conditions of a patient, infant or elderly person. For example, a nurse will want to know if a patient has stopped breathing or moving, or has fallen down. The cause of that condition could be an accident or an internal condition such as stroke, heart attack, diabetic condition etc. which could be fatal if there is no immediate care. It may also be important to know if there is wetness in the patient's diaper and whether it has been soiled, whether a patient with wounds has been regularly turned, whether the patient's body temperature exceeds a certain value and if the environmental temperature is in a normal comfortable range. The position or orientation of the patient or infant in bed, if he or she stands up, or lays down, how much he or she moved in bed or standing up, how many steps were taken and how long they were, what is the oxygen concentration in his or her blood, pulse and blood pressure—these are all factors which may be significant to the health care attendant. The problem of an elderly patient or infant wandering is similarly of high significance. In that case it is important for the care-giver to know where infant or patient is at any moment, when he/she stood up and started walking or running, and through which door the patient passed. If the patient went out of the facility it is important to know his/her global position.
Existing monitoring systems do not permit a nurse, care-giver or attendant to monitor all of these factors through one interface. Separate diaper wetness monitors which detect wetness, separate temperature monitors or oxygen and pulse monitors or blood pressure monitors are known but not integrated. Existing systems generally do not monitor patient positions nor issue an alarm and record if the patient does not move at all, falls, arouses, if the patient sits or moves, when that happened and how much movement there was. Nor do existing systems monitor how many times a patient or infant urinates or defecates. They do not monitor and record how many steps and what speed or direction a patient took and distance walked, nor detection of the doors a patient went through, or exact location in a building or global positioning. There is therefore also a need for a monitoring system which can detect, monitor and report multiple events and conditions such as the foregoing to a single interface.
Various systems are known for monitoring the diapers of infants or incontinent patients in health care facilities to detect urination or defecation. U.S. Pat. No. 5,903,222 to Kawarizadeh et al. discloses a detector for detecting wetness conditions in diapers using a capacitive sensor in a housing attached to the exterior surface of the garment being monitored. If a wetness condition is detected a signal is transmitted to a central monitoring station. U.S. Pat. No. 6,570,053 to Roe et al. discloses a diaper which has an electrical sensor to detect signals that correlate to an impending elimination of bodily waste. U.S. Pat. No. 7,977,529 to Bergman et al. discloses an incontinence management system for monitoring wetness events in the diapers of multiple patients. The sensors in such system are located within the diaper so the diapers in such system are designed for use for only a few days as the sensors only last for one incontinent event. The present inventor has also disclosed in United States published patent application Publication no. 2005/0195085 a wireless monitoring system having a number of sensors which attach to a diaper.
A problem with previous systems is that their useful life is limited to detecting only one urination or defecation event. Since typically such monitors use sensors that are inside the diaper, once the diaper is wet or soiled, for example, subsequent events cannot be detected. There is therefore a need for a monitoring system in which the diaper is useful for more than one incontinence event. There is also a need for a monitoring system which can detect, monitor and report multiple events of urination or defecation without the diaper or other garment having been changed. There is a further need for a system in which the attendant can determine how many incontinence events have occurred in the diaper, the volume of such events, how long since the last event and how frequent the events are. There is a further need for systems for monitoring incontinence which can be used in wound management.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related thereto are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.